1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, a job generation method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various printers are available these days ranging from a low-end personal printer to a high-speed machine targeting exclusive users. A high-speed Print On Demand (POD) machine for exclusive users provides outstanding processing performance but is expensive. Thus, a less-expensive model called LitePOD is introduced to the market. A LitePOD includes an office-use printer engine with comparatively high-speed processing capability and a controller which can also be used for a POD machine. The LitePOD can be used, as a network printer, by a plurality of users using host computers thereof but the LitePOD can also perform printing via a server called a core system (backbone system).
Regarding printing via the core system, there is a widely-known server application called Raster Document Object (RDO) Print. The RDOPrint converts an RDO file into raw (native) PostScript language without a control code. After the conversion, the file can be printed by a printer of any manufacturer so long as the printer can interpret PostScript. Thus, the user can flexibly operate the system.
A user of a printer such as the LitePOD can print a job immediately after the job is submitted to the printer. In addition, the printer can also provide print-related functions. For example, once a job is set to “hold” by the printer, the user can check the attribute setting of the job, print one set and print more at a later time after confirming the printing. If the user finds a problem, the user can change the setting. When a user submits a job from the host computer and designates whether to print or hold the job via a driver screen of, for example, Microsoft Windows (registered trademark), the driver adds a job control command specific to the printer and transmits the job to the printer in packets. However, if the job is written in a native language, such as the job sent from a core system server, it is difficult to add a job control command specific to the printer. Therefore, a different method is used to designate the job operation. For example, if a Line Printer Daemon protocol (LPD) is used, the user can designate a queue name as a character string. For example, if the user sends a job with a destination queue name of “Print” according to the settings of the server application, the job will be printed. On the other hand, if the user sends a job with a destination queue name of “Hold”, the job will be temporarily spooled in a print server or a printer controller or the job is stored after the interpretation of the data is finished.
Further, there is a known function called a hot folder. If a Portable Document Format (PDF) file is moved to a folder on the host computer, the job is sent to the printer according to a protocol set in advance. By preparing a plurality of hot folders with different settings and moving the file to one of the folders depending on the user's needs, the job can be easily transmitted to the printer. The above-described LPD can be used for this transmission protocol.
Japanese Patent No. 3847970 discusses a method for correctly processing jobs when a print job is transmitted from a driver to the printer or a job of a different protocol such as the LPD is submitted to the printer.
Further, Japanese Patent No. 2871275 discusses a method for selecting the optimum interpreter, even if the received job is written in a different type of native page description language (PDL), according to determination of the language type from the content of the data.
If a LitePOD machine described in the background of the invention is used for printing a job, whether to immediately print or hold the job can be designated from the job submitting side. However, if a print job is sent from a core system, since the operation of the job is determined by the settings set from the server, the user is unable to change the setting on whether to immediately print or hold the print job sent from the core system. This is inconvenient for the user since there may be various cases where, for example, the user may desire to immediately print the job sent from the core system, change the settings before printing the job, or stop the printing of the core system alone until special paper used for the job is supplied.
Although an entire printer system may have a function to change the control method, it is not desirable for the users who submit jobs via the driver or the hot folder that the operation of the job may be changed in ways unintended by the users.
It is possible to provide the printer with a function that can change the job control method in units of protocols or in units of job sources. However, if the protocol is, for example, a one-way communication protocol such as the LPD and a different job route exists, this will cause a problem. For example, if a user sets a hot folder for transmitting a PDF file using the same protocol as the one used for the core system on the user's host computer, it is difficult for the printer to determine whether the job has been sent from the core system or from the hot folder.